A teachable moment from the TDC

County commissioners are correct in trying to bring accountability to the Gulf County Tourist Development Council.

The TDC is a special taxing unit established in Florida law and commissioners, and their constituents, have every right to expect full transparency from the agency and its board.

Where, however, have commissioners been?

Listening between the lines there is plenty to shock about what is going on with a county agency suddenly flush with more than $1 million in BP money and spending as if having won the Lotto.

As reported by Star Staff Writer Valerie Garman on the front page of this newspaper, the TDC is simply acting as business as usual, though feeling strong with green-hued steroids with dead Presidents on them.

County attorney Jeremy Novak probably summed it up best when he told commissioners at one point during a recent meeting that the TDC has “had little structure” in the past.

That explains a lot.

For instance, an executive director who enters into contracts worth hundreds of thousands of dollars without the approval of anyone else – not his own board or the Board of County Commissioners.

As another, a county agency operating under a marketing agreement that exists in theory only – a company was issued a letter of award on its bid but never signed a formal contract with the county, without a plausible explanation provided.

But there is just a whiff of hyperbole and hypocrisy in this sudden attention to the TDC that is alarming for county taxpayers.

Be clear, the money at issue here is largely money paid by British Petroleum as a portion of fines to the impacted Florida counties to bring back tourists.

That, in truth, is part of the problem, a rush of cash that overwhelms proper policy requirements and logic.

That would seem the case with an event such as the PoJo Live Music Festival.

Paying more than $30,000 to a headliner few had heard of.

Spending tens of thousands of dollars, much of it spent out of the county, on perks for the bands.

Blowing a budget without any way to quantify that blowing the budget would provide the requisite bang.

That is a pretty fair interpretation of an event that allegedly fell under the category of being “high impact” but lacked much bump for local lodging establishments, which lacking attendance figures for the free festival is the lone way to assess impact.

Even the TDC executive director acknowledged being a tad overwhelmed by his embarrassment of riches – and how the money has been spent at a time of great economic hardship in the county also turned out to be an embarrassment.

But in typical years, the TDC operates under a budget in the high six figures, the expenditure of those dollars the Board of County Commissioners is charged with overseeing.

So to take the executive director to task in a public meeting about an apparent lack of accountability is akin to the fox scolding the chicken for not eating enough to maintain bulk.

County commissioners should be requiring that accountability from the first dollar expended each year – accountability is not something to trot out when the public winds blow from a certain direction.

That commissioners see no accountability from the TDC is on them, not the executive director of the TDC.

Commissioners have long talked a good game about accountability and transparency in county government and if the TDC episode is anything, it is indication work remains.

Further, if the company the executive director’s brother owns and operates wins an award for marketing services to the TDC, ensuring a contract has been signed is on commissioners.

To bring up the issue of conflict via nepotism at this point makes little sense since it was the county – the Board of County Commissioners – that gives final approval to award the contract in the first place.

The entire argument is particularly disingenuous coming from the very commissioner whose close personal and professional relationship with a contracted partner of the TDC opened this current can of worms.

The commission was already on notice concerning policies and procedures and the dynamics of agencies and boards that operate under the auspices of the BOCC.

A county grand jury earlier this year took the TDC to task for not fully adhering to open meeting and records laws during the hiring process of the current executive director; the grand jury’s admonishment compelled the county attorney to refine and reinforce county policy as it applied to the various county boards such as the TDC.

And for commissioners to argue they did not know or fully grasp what was going on within the TDC is a stretch given that the BOCC chairman sits on the TDC board and the county attorney’s wife works within the TDC office.

This episode feels eerily familiar to that which recently roiled the county EMS department, without the dollars.

In that case, as with the TDC, entrenched operating procedures – many of which flew in the face of county policy – were allowed to fester, along with a communication disconnect between department and BOCC, until accountability and transparency were eclipsed by politics and personal agendas.

That is not far removed from what has happened recently with the TDC.

The TDC indeed has work to do to put its house in order, as commissioners urged, but commissioners should also be looking in the mirror for the answers.

If true accountability and transparency are going to exist in county government, it must start on that podium, with those five commissioners. They must lead, not follow, be proactive, and professional, in ensuring sunshine in government not reactive, and personal, to the latest crisis.

Commissioners are elected to lead, and at hand is another teachable moment about leadership.